(US officially recognized debt was 6½ Trillion 6,460,712,491,314.69 at the start of the US attack on Iraq, March 20, 2003)

The US trade deficit was $559.9 billion in 2011, $540.4 billion in 2012, 474.86 billion in 2013

During fiscal year 2013 the U.S. Treasury paid 415 billion dollars in interest payments to finance the already-existing debt.

Annual interest payments for individuals, households, businesses, and all levels of US government are likely to reach $3 trillion  out of an estimated $17.4 trillion annual GDP.

The United States has the world's seventh-highest per capita GDP

GDP can be contrasted with GNI  gross national income  also known as GNP. The U.S. GNP  gross national product  is the value of output produced by American-owned firms, regardless of where the firms are located.

These differences mean that GNP is a more accurate measure of a country's income than its production.

It blew the loan out the back door as a special dividend which it owners pocketed with gusto

April 24, 2014

It has been a feeding frenzy for junk debt.

Yield-desperate investors, driven to near insanity by the Fed’s strenuous interest-rate repression, are holding their noses and closing their eyes, and they’re bending down deep into the barrel and scrape up even the crappiest and riskiest paper just to get that little extra yield.

They saw 95 weeks in a row of inflows, week after week, without fail, adding over $70 billion to their heft, as Bloomberg reported, and only the sky seemed to be the limit.

But suddenly, that endless flow of money reversed.

“It’s going to be a disaster on the way out,” Mirko Mikelic, who helps manage $7 billion in assets at ClearArc Capital, told Bloomberg. “On the way in, there’s insatiable demand....”

Simplest way to strip cash

Private equity firms have been ruthlessly taking advantage of that “insatiable demand.”

And they have a special self-serving trick up their sleeve: Their junk-rated overleveraged portfolio companies issue new loans, but instead of using the funds for expansion projects or other productive uses, they hand them out through the back door as special dividends.

It’s one of the simplest ways PE firms use to strip cash out of their portfolio companies.

It loads even more debt on the already highly leveraged portfolio company without adding productive capacity.

And those who end up holding this debt  for example, the mutual fund in your portfolio  have a good chance of losing it all.

“It’s kind of like an epidemic,” explained Martin Fridson, a money manager at Lehmann, Livian, Fridson Advisors LLC, in an interview with Bloomberg.

“Once an investment banker sees that, he’s going to go to his clients and say, ‘Here’s a window of opportunity, you can take a dividend and get away with it.’”

And they’ve been getting away with it.

Default rates on junk debt hovered at 1.7% in the first quarter, a near record low.

But that’s always the case when liquidity sloshes through the system and years of interest rate repression turns yield investors into brain-dead zombies, always willing to replace troubled debt with new money.

But the historical average is 4.5%, and when things tighten up, as they did during the financial crisis, default rates jump into the double digits
[read.... Biggest Credit Bubble in History Flashes Warning: ‘Seek Cover’].

But instead of doing something productive with the funds to generate cash flow to service the loan, it blew the money out the back door as a special dividend which it owners  PE firms Madison Dearborn Partners, Providence Equity Partners, and Welsh Carson, Anderson & Stowe  pocketed with gusto.

BMC software

BMC software borrowed $750 million via one of the riskiest forms of debt, payment-in-kind (PIK) notes, where, if push comes to shove, BMC can chose to pay interest not with cash but with more of the same debt.

The amount it owes gets larger, as its chances of survival shrivel. Instead of defaulting, the company will simply hand the lender more paper that’s increasingly worthless.

BMC promptly forwarded the $750 million to its owners, a group of PE firms let by Bain Capital that had acquired BMC only seven months earlier.

Time is of the essence. Platinum Equity, which had acquired Volvo’s rental car division, waited only a week after closing the deal before sucking $262 million out that the company had obtained by issuing PIK debt.

So far this year, these already overleveraged companies have issued nearly $21 billion in junk-rated debt for the purpose of paying special dividends to the PE firms that own them  the most since the bubble of 2007, before it all blew up spectacularly.

Of that, $3.5 billion were these reeking PIK notes.

When a default occurs, the PE firms have the cash, and the lenders get stuck with largely worthless paper.

That’s what invariably happens when the Fed’s interest rate repression pushes investors out toward the thin end of the risk branch.

During normal times, no sane lender would go along with this without demanding a confiscatory yield.

The door would be closed to these sorts of glaring wealth-transfer shenanigans.

But these are not normal times.

This is the greatest credit bubble in history.

Most insatiable buyers leveraged-loan mutual funds

Among the most insatiable buyers of this stuff: leveraged-loan mutual funds, and by extension, retail investors.

But now, they’re getting cold feet, apparently, and for the first time, after 95 weeks in a row of inflows, they yanked money out, Bloomberg reported.

Not a panic just yet, but the flow has reversed. In the week ended April 16, they drained $276 million out of these mutual funds.

And these funds are starting to bleed.

The LS&P/LSTA Leveraged Loan 100 Index, which sports a 5-year annual return of 10.5%, dipped into the red for April and might book its first monthly loss since the taper-tantrum turmoil last summer.

Mutual funds that hold leveraged loans are fearsome products.

They entice investors with a little extra yield, but still less than an FDIC insured one-year CD used to pay in the pre-crisis days.

That’s how far the Fed has pushed it.

But these loans are even less liquid than corporate bonds.

Unlike bonds or stocks, they’re not regulated.

They’re traded the old-fashioned cumbersome way, via email or even the phone, involving complex paperwork that may take weeks to complete.

It’s not easy to transfer a loan.

And when belatedly spooked investors start selling these mutual funds, fund managers are forced to dump loans into a market where liquidity just evaporates without notice.

Prices plunge on the sales that do go through  and those who get out first, bleed the least.

Yet, former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke doesn’t regret any of the Fed’s actions, he said, except not explaining them to the people.

If a country becomes increasingly in debt, and spends large amounts of income servicing this debt this will be reflected in a decreased GNI but not a decreased GDP.

Similarly, if a country sells off its resources to entities outside their country this will also be reflected over time in decreased GNI, but not decreased GDP.

GDP is more attractive for politicians in countries with increasing national debt and decreasing assets.

The United States GNP for 2013 was 16.188 Trillion US dollars

David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the US and head of the Government Accountability Office, in his December 17, 2007, report to the US Congress on the financial statements of the US government noted that "the federal government did not maintain effective internal control over financial reporting (including safeguarding assets) and compliance with significant laws and regulations as of September 30, 2007."

The US government cannot pass an audit.

The GAO report states accrued liabilities of the federal government "totaled approximately $53 trillion as of September 30, 2007".

The estimated net worth of all Americans including all business is about $47 trillion, reducing and increasing as property and company value reduces and increases.

Each resident and citizen  man, woman, child and newborn's  share of the national debt at 18 trillion: $56,250

US  a Banana Republic

In its depth and suddenness, the U.S. economic and financial crisis is shockingly reminiscent of moments we have recently seen in emerging markets (and only in emerging markets): South Korea (1997), Malaysia (1998), Russia and Argentina (time and again).

In each of those cases, global investors, afraid that the country or its financial sector wouldn’t be able to pay off mountainous debt, suddenly stopped lending.

And in each case, that fear became self-fulfilling, as banks that couldn’t roll over their debt did, in fact, become unable to pay.

This is precisely what drove Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy on September 15, causing all sources of funding to the U.S. financial sector to dry up overnight.

Just as in emerging-market crises, the weakness in the banking system has quickly rippled out into the rest of the economy, causing a severe economic contraction and hardship for millions of people.

But there’s a deeper and more disturbing similarity: elite business interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse.

More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive.

The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them.

By 2006 President Putin had paid off Russia’s government debt to the IMF and foreign governments.

Income inequality has grown over the last 30 years or more driven by three dynamics:

Rising inequality of labor income  wages and compensation

Rising inequality of capital income

An increasing share of income going to capital income rather than labor income.

Examining market-based incomes one finds that the top 1 percent of households have a very large share of all of the gains in income  59.9 percent of the gains from 1979–2007.

The top 0.1 percent compared to the rest of the top 1 percent of households seized an even more disproportionate share: 36 percent.

In comparison, only 8.6 percent of income gains have gone to the bottom 90 percent of households”

The average American’s living standard would be much, much higher today if wages had not decoupled from productivity gains  with the gains all going to the 1 percent instead of being shared by workers.

If wages had kept pace we wouldn’t feel the terrible squeeze that everyone in the middle class is feeling.

This breakoff of wages from productivity growth is partly the result of trade agreements that pit Americans against exploited workers in non-democracies.

This weakened the bargaining power of unions, moved factories and industries out of the country, devastated entire regions of our country  and gave the giant multinational corporations, Wall Street and the billionaires the leverage they needed.

With bond markets shut and investors unwilling to buy asset-backed securities, the repo market  for some banks the sole remaining source of private funding  has become the most recent tap to run dry, with some investment banks pulling credit lines worth tens of billions of euros in recent weeks...

'Credit taps run dry for European bank'  International Finance Review

China's leading credit rating agency Dagong Global Credit Rating Company last summer stripped America, Britain, Germany and France of their AAA ratings, accusing Anglo-Saxon competitors of ideological bias in favour of the West.

And last week:

Analysis shows that the crisis confronting the U.S. cannot be ultimately resolved through currency depreciation.

On the contrary, it is likely that an overall crisis might be triggered by the U.S. government’s policy to continuously depreciate the U.S. dollar against the will of creditors.

Creation of electronic nonsense

If we exclude the factor of virtual [a more polite term for false] economy, the U.S. actual GDP is about 5 trillion U.S. dollars.

Total domestic consumption is 10.0 trillion U.S. dollars and government expenditure was 4.5 trillion U.S. dollars in 2009, now in 2011 is anticipated with debt load to be somewhere above the moon, between U.S. 10 and 30 trillion creation of electronic nonsense.

And think of all the volatility that all these events will bring to world financial markets, and the fabulous wealth accumulated by anyone having insider information on when these events will be orchestrated to occur!

However, as for the those of you who have not been anointed by the New World Order, only those who own gold and silver [that means part buried in your garden, part under the floorboards] will survive! [Better]

The gifts of billions of dollars of taxpayers' money provided the banks with an abundance of low cost capital that has boosted the banks' profits, while the taxpayers who provided the capital are increasingly unemployed and homeless.

JPMorgan Chase announced that it has earned $3.6 billion in the third quarter of this year.

Meanwhile, New York City's homeless shelters have reached the all time high of 39,000, 16,000 of whom are children.

This applies to people in all Western countries, and all other nation-states also!

Kewe

JP Morgan and the US Gold Bullion Fed dollar Empire

I have a lot of captured data illustrating just about every price takedown since JPMorgan took over the Bear Stearns short silver
position.

Thought it may be helpful to your investigation if I gave you the heads up for a manipulative event signaled for Friday, 5th February 2010.

The non-farm payrolls number will be announced at 8.30 ET.

There will be one of two scenarios occurring, and both will result in silver (and gold) being taken down with a wave of short selling designed to take out obvious support levels and trip stops below.

While I will no doubt be able to profit from this upcoming trade, it is an example of just how easy it is to manipulate a market if a concentrated position is allowed by a very small group of traders....

Both scenarios will spell an attempt by the two main short holders to illegally drive the market down and reap very large profits. Locals
such as myself will be 'invited' on board, which will further add downward pressure....

Notice all those 'We want your gold ads!'

It is known that leverage is now as high as 100 to 1 for Gold — that is 100 units on paper for 1 actual unit of gold.

Once it becomes clearly understood... that there is no actual physical gold for the paper....

Everyone is involved... all governments know....

Kewe

A short and long-term view down the rabbit hole with insider whistleblowers — Mp3 audio interview right click here

To think that the pussycat Fed (would become) a saber-toothed tiger is a deception."

Worse still, ruinous economic policies "could prove fatal" if White House policies favor "Wall Street but not the national economy or American people" — the very direction they've now taken.

In a follow-up April 7 article, Phillips highlighted:

"The Disaster Stage of US Financialization....a much grander-scale disaster than anything that happened in 1929 — 1933.

Worse, it dwarfs the abuses of debt, finance and financialization that brought down previous leading world economic powers like Britain and Holland."

Today's crisis represents:

"the bursting of the huge 25-year, almost $50 trillion debt bubble that helped underwrite the hijacking of the US economy by a rabid financial sector...."

It's realigning global power with America losing its economic leadership won in WW II.

"The ignominy deserved by Wall Street after 1929-1933 is peanuts compared with the opprobrium the US financial sector and its political and regulatory allies deserve this time." Financialized America radically transformed the country, now "doubly staggering because of the crushing burden of its collapse."

Yet major media pundits and reporters barely noticed and now claim relief is just a few quarters away — ignoring a metastasizing cancer, a national disaster, while policy makers heap fuel on a raging blaze now consuming us, yet too little public rage confronts them.

A Former Insider Speaks Out

Economics Professor William Black is a former senior bank regulator and Savings and Loan prosecutor, currently teaching economics and law at the University of Missouri.

In an April 13 Barrons interview, he referred to "failed bankers (advising) failed regulators on how to deal with failed assets" they all had a hand in creating and proliferating.

His conclusion: "How can it result in anything but failure."

He called the scale of financial fraud "immense," and said "Unless the current administration changes course pretty drastically, the scandal will destroy Barack Obama's presidency," besides what it's doing to the country, global economies, and many millions of people here and abroad.

He scathed Summers and Geithner, both "important architects of (today's) problems," and the latter as a failed and dishonest regulator, yet "numbering himself among those who convey tough medicine when he's really pandering to the interests of a select group of banks."

No need to mention which ones.

The law mandates corrective action, the kind FDR took in the 1930s.

He, Bernanke and Summers flout the law, "in naked violation, in order to pursue the kind of favoritism that the law was designed to prevent."

His refusal to put insolvent banks into receivership, resorting to deceptive language like "legacy assets," and pursuing the worst of Chicago School economics "is positively Orwellian....If cheaters prosper, (they'll) dominate.

It's like Gresham's law: Bad money drives out the good.

Well, bad behavior" does the same thing "without good enforcement."

His bailout plans are disastrous.

They prop up zombie banks by:

"mispricing toxic assets....The last thing we need is a further drain on our resources....by promoting this toxic asset market (and notions of) too-big-to-fail."

Multi-trillion dollar cover-up by publicly traded enterprises

With most, perhaps all, the big banks insolvent (a polite term for bankrupt), what's going on is "a multi-trillion dollar cover-up by publicly traded (enterprises), which amounts to felony securities fraud on a massive scale."

Ultimately, these firms will be forced into receivership, their "managements and boards stripped of office, title, and compensation."

What's needed is a 1930s-style Pecora investigation to get to the bottom of their fraud, deceit, and cover-up, along with government complicity to hide it.

More on that below.

Black cited billions to AIG as the single worst abuse so far — to bail out their counterparties like Switzerland's UBS at the same time we were prosecuting it for tax fraud. As bad was following Goldman Sachs' advice to direct a $13 billion counterparty windfall to itself.

The whole process reeks of corruption.

It must be stopped, and a new direction instituted under a reformist economic team — one that will admit the nature and depth of the problem, cut the tie to Wall Street, and take corrective action the law mandates.

That's "precisely what isn't happening."

Washington is "wedded to the bad idea of bigness" and power of Wall Street.

In today's America, financialization is predominant.

It's a cancer eating away at the fabric of the nation and many millions affected, the result of the grandest of grand thefts.

A good start would be to break up the financial giants into more effectively managed and less powerful units — maybe the way Standard Oil was dismantled through a simple share spinoff.

In addition, "a new seriousness must be put into regulation," and a new resolve to enforce it.

Today, the whole system encourages fraud, one based on results at any cost, so "fudging the numbers" becomes de rigueur and global bigness the holy grail.

It sends the wrong message — play or pay with your job and future on Wall Street.

"The basis for all regulation and white-collar crime is to take the competitive advantage away from the cheats, so the good guys can prevail.

We need to get back to that."

It's been decades since we've been there and high time we took it seriously.

Job one is a thorough housecleaning and new direction, much like what's described below.

On April 3, Black appeared on Bill Moyers Journal on PBS and explained what's briefly enumerated below.

From his experience as a regulator and prosecutor, he said:

Fraud is initiated in boardrooms and CEO offices by making "really bad loans, because they pay better;"

Then grow them like a Ponzi scheme multiplied through leverage; it's hugely profitable early on, then inevitably creates "disaster down the road;"

Dismantling regulation makes it possible;

One scheme was subprime, Alt-A , and even prime "liars' loans" — meaning no checks are made on income, jobs, ability to repay, and the more they're inflated the more profitable they are; the amount of them was enormous — for one company alone, they generated as many losses as the entire S & L scandal;

Toxic products were willfully created to scam borrowers for big profits;

rating agencies went along by appraising junk as AAA instead of doing it honestly;

In September 2004, the FBI warned about a mortgage fraud epidemic, but nothing was done to stop it; so now we have a crisis hundreds of times greater than the S & L one and bad policy in play to address it;

As in Barrons, he accused top Bush and Obama officials of a cover-up — to conceal the insolvency of all major banks and by so doing broke the law established after the S & L crisis, the Prompt Corrective Action Law that mandates insolvent banks be shut down and/or placed in receivership; and

This is the greatest financial scandal in history — swept under the rug by top government officials of both parties; it's legally and morally indefensible, and it's wrecking the country.

In an April 6 article, Black calls ongoing "stress tests a complete sham.... to fool people.... make us chumps" and essentially say 'If we lie and they believe us, all will be well'" when, in fact, it's not.

Greatest ever criminal fraud by bankers and complicit government officials

It's part of the giant cover-up and greatest ever criminal fraud — by bankers and complicit government officials.

On April 13, Nouriel Roubini shared Black's view.

He cited the stress test "spin machine" leaking stories to the press that all 19 banks in question will pass.

None will fail.

If more "exceptional assistance" is needed, Washington will provide it.

However, Q 1 macro data tells another story as growth, unemployment, and falling home prices alone "are worse than those in FDIC's baseline scenario for 2009 AND even worse than those for the more adverse stressed scenario for 2009.

Make believe

Thus, the stress test results are meaningless" as worsening data are outdistancing "the worst case scenario."

In other words, test results "are not worth the paper (they'll be) written on" as their assumptions are fraudulently based.

They're "fudge tests....blatantly rigged" to put a brave face on a very bleak economic picture.

They're in addition to other changes, including the recent Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) ruling.

"Is that a financial crisis (originating) in consumer debt, concentrated at the low end of the wealth and income distribution (affecting so many households), can be transmitted quickly and forcefully into the financial system....

We're witnessing the second great consumer debt crash, the end of a massive consumption binge," but want more study to prove it.

However, much more than that is needed — real reform, a complete reversal from current policy of the kind addressed below.

Instead of helping beleaguered households, they've gone mostly to bankers for purposes other than economic recovery; namely, recapitalizations, for acquisitions, and big bonuses at the same time they fire thousands of lower level staff.

The 1930s Pecora Commission

On March 4, 1932 (one year to the day before FDR took office), a majority-Republican Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee established it to investigate the causes of the 1929 crash.

It was little more than a fig leaf until Democrats took over, appointed Ferdinand Pecora as special counsel, and made a real effort for banking and regulatory reform.

Straightaway, Pecora looked into Wall Street's seamy underside by placing powerful bankers in the dock, holding them accountable for their actions, and doing through hearings what would have been impossible in open court given their ability to "buy" justice.

He confronted Wall Street's biggest names:

Richard Whitney, president of the New York Stock Exchange;

Noted investment bankers, including Thomas Lamont, Otto Kahn, Charles E. Mitchell, Albert Wiggin, and JP Morgan, Jr., scion of the man who dominated the Street for decades as its boss and de facto Fed chairman before the central bank was established

Market speculators like Arthur Cutten.

No income taxes paid

He got Morgan to admit that he and his 20 partners paid no income taxes in 1931 and 1932.

Neither did its Philadelphia operation, Drexel and Co., in the same years and way underpaid them in previous ones.

It made headlines, was stunning, and galvanized critics to demand reform.

Pecora went further.

He questioned Morgan and others on various matters, including sweetheart deals for political figures and insider ones for Wall Street cronies, similar shenanigans to today but not on the same scale, and under a president then who cared once Roosevelt took office.

He directed "pitiless publicity" on Street corruption, what they easily got away with under Republicans.

Pecora was a former New York district attorney, an Eliot Spitzer-type with a reputation for toughness and fearlessness, but one serving at the behest of the President.

He established straightaway that some of Wall Street's most powerful lied to their shareholders, manipulated stocks to their advantage, and profited hugely through malfeasance.

Roosevelt encouraged him in his March 4, 1933 inaugural address saying:

"There must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments

There must be an end to speculation with other people's money

There must be provision for an adequate but sound currency....

The rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure and abdicated.

Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men...."

"They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers.

They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The money changers have fled their high seats in the temple of our civilization.

We must now restore that temple to the ancient truths.

(Doing it requires) apply(ing) social values more noble than mere monetary profit."

Imagine Obama saying this

Imagine Obama saying this, followed by strong policies for enforcement under Roosevelt-style officials.

Men like Pecora who asked tough questions and demanded answers, including on the House of Morgan's operations, something unimaginable today under any leadership.

Morgan's counsel, John W. Davis, called Pecora's questions outrageous, but Morgan had to answer in detail enough to shake the "secret government's" foundations.

Pecora's staff examined company records that revealed financial manipulations among the Street's powerful to reap enormous profits — enough for Morgan to gain control of most US industry, buy politicians and diplomats, and effectively control the most powerful banks in the country.

Small group of highly placed financiers holds more real power

Years later in his book, Wall Street Under Fire, Pecora wrote:

"Undoubtedly, this small group of highly placed financiers, controlling the very springs of economic activity, holds more real power than any similar group in the United States."

Morgan called it performing a "service" and exercising no more control than through "argument and persuasion."

His managing partner, Thomas Lamont, told the committee that the firm only offered advice that clients could accept or reject.

Pecora learned otherwise as he peeled away the layers of company power and influence.

Friends of the bank lists in two tiers

He discovered "preferred clients" and friends of the bank lists in two tiers — special allies, operatives, and cronies and a "fishing list" from which new ones were recruited.

In total, it showed Morgan was more powerful than Washington — that the firm effectively controlled a network of companies that made US financial policy for over three decades plus leading politicians and much of the federal bench.

Pecora discovered what's as true today — that a select group of giant banks run things.

They set policy, rig the game to their advantage, buy politicians the way Morgan did, and pretty much run the country and the world.

Again Pecora from his book:

Morgan's power was "a stark fact.

It was a great stream that was fed by many sources

By its deposits

By its loans

By its promotions

By its directorships

By its pre-eminent position as investment bankers

By its control of holding companies which, in turn, controlled scores of subsidiaries

By its silken bonds of gratitude in which it skillfully enmeshed the chosen ranks of the 'preferred lists.'

It reached into every corner of the nation and penetrated in public, as well as business affairs.

The problems raised by such an institution go far beyond banking regulation in the narrow sense.

It might be a formidable rival to the government itself."

Pecora proceeded from Morgan to others, powerful bankers in their own right like Kuhn, Loeb's Otto Kahn.

Roosevelt championed the hearings and from them came legislative reforms, the kinds so desperately needed now but nowhere in sight by an administration totally subservient to money and power and thoroughly corrupted by them — after a scant three months in office.

Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) Calls for Sweeping Changes

Its head, Elizabeth Warren, called on the Treasury to get tough on TARP recipients, including:

Questioning the "dangers inherent" in its strategy; the idea of "open-ended subsidies (to giant institutions) without adequately weighing potential pitfalls;"

Acknowledging that it has no historical precedent and faint hope of succeeding;

Leveraging the $700 billion in TARP funds well beyond what Congress appropriated — to an amount exceeding $4 trillion and smacking of high-level corruption;

Firing top executives of failed institutions like Citigroup, Bank of America and AIG; "the very notion that anyone would infuse money into a financially troubled entity without demanding (management) changes is preposterous;"

Ahareholders to be wiped out; "it is crucial (for this) to happen;"

Choosing among three alternatives for insolvent banks: "liquidation, receivership, or subsidization;" Geithner's plan is none of the above and essentially unworkable; it fails to acknowledge the decline's depth and degree to which troubled assets low valuations accurately reflect their worth;

If the downturn gets greater than forecast, "very different actions" will be needed "to restore financial stability."

Given the extent and long-term nature of today's crisis, it's shocking that bad policy practically assures the worst outcome.

Maybe a government/Wall Street cabal prefers it to capitalize on the wreckage at fire sale prices, at home and globally, as part of a long-term process of sucking wealth to the top while ignoring its fallout, both human and economic.

Those calculations don't enter their sophisticated models, only bottom line ones they can bank on.

Other Bank Bailout Critics

Willem Buiter was a former member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (1997 — 2000).

He's now has a Maverecon blog and is a Financial Times (FT) regular.

He's also a fierce critic of bank bailouts, a policy he says wastes good time and money and is destined to fail.

"The good bank solution and slaughter of the unsecured creditors should have been pursued actively as soon as it became clear that most (US international banks were) insolvent."

Soon enough it will be apparent anyway, before year end.

"At that point, (their) de facto insolvency will be so self-evident that even the joint and several obfuscation of banks and Treasury will be unable to deny the obvious."

And they'll be no fiscal resources to the rescue.

"The likelihood of Congress voting even a nickel in additional financial support for the banks is zero."

He accused the administration of bailing out bankers at the expense of the economy.

"All the ingredients they have so far are weak, and there are several missing" ones. The people who created this monster are "either in the pocket of the banks or they're incompetent."

"We don't have enough money, they don't want to go back to Congress, they don't want to do it in an open way, and they" won't act responsibly and place the banks in receivership where they belong and let shareholders, not taxpayers take the pain.

This policy guarantees failure.

It's "an absolute mess."

It's a strategy to re-inflate a bubble that will do nothing to speed recovery.

"It's a recipe for Japanese-style malaise."

Government clearly cooking the books

Financial expert and investor safety advocate Martin Weiss is most critical of all.

He calls bank stress tests "FLIM-FLAM" in accusing Washington of hiding the true condition of the nation's 19 largest banks.

"Our own government is clearly cooking the books — using (false) criteria to deceive you; hoping you'll trust banks that are clearly hanging by a thread."

Economy sinking, not stabilizing, let alone recovering

On May 4, they'll announce the results — jerry-rigged to present an illusion of solvency, but clearly a deceptive lie.

The economy is sinking, not stabilizing, let alone recovering.

The administration is bailing out bankers while wrecking the economy and millions of households.

Why isn't Washington addressing the tough questions, he asks.

Answers have them terrified

Because the answers have them "terrified," so they play for time while:

Home foreclosures are exploding

Factories are sitting idle

Consumption keeps falling

Yet they hope conditions will improve.

No one asks:

What if states and cities can't provide vital services;

Hospitals have to close down "due to disruptions in insurance payments;"

"Supermarket shelves are emptied because trucking companies can't get short-term loans to stay in business;"

Utilities "are crippled as the crisis kills the revenues they count on from corporations;" and

"Soaring deficits drive interest rates sky-high and gut the dollar, driving the cost of living through the roof."

What if that day is today

What if one day we discover America is no longer America.

What if we realize that day is today.

Another Day, Another Scheme — the latest one lets ordinary people participate in Geithner's Public-Private Partnership Program (PPIP) that sounds suspiciously like "liars' loan" fraud, except this time "investments" in worthless junk are involved that will separate fools from their money.

The New York Times headlined the plan by comparing it to WW I Liberty Bonds that helped the country win the war.

Now it's "to come to the aid of their banks — with the added inducement of possibly making some money...."

The idea is for "large investment companies to create the financial-crisis equivalent of war bonds: bailout funds" to sucker the unwary to "invest" and, simultaneously, quiet opposition to the handouts.

According to money management firm BlackRock director Steven Baffico:

"It's giving the guy on Main Street an equal seat at the table next to the big guys." Pimco's Bill Gross called it a "win-win-win policy."

Absolutely for him so he loves it.

Plans are still being discussed.

They won't likely be announced for several months, but already the scheme is apparent.

It's to offload toxic junk on the public, let unwary investors take losses, relieve troubled banks of more of them, and arrange for investment fund issuers (like Pimco and BlackRock) to reap healthy fees if enough suckers can be enlisted to go along.

As troublesome is FDIC's role in the scam — through its transformation from insuring depositors to a much greater one guaranteeing over $1 trillion in junk assets, way over its charter $30 billion limit by twisting the rules to arrange it.

Its charter allows extraordinary steps to be taken when an "emergency determination by secretary of the Treasury" is made to mitigate "systemic risk." However, its Section 14 Borrowing Authority states:

"The Corporation is authorized to borrow from the Treasury.... for insurance purposes (not speculation, bailouts, or other schemes, an amount) not exceeding in the aggregate $30,000,000,000 outstanding at any one time....

Any such loan shall be used by the Corporation solely in carrying out its functions with respect to such insurance (of bank deposits, then up to $5000, now temporarily at $250,000)...."

"Before issuing an obligation or making a guarantee, the Corporation shall estimate the cost of such obligations (as well as market value)....

The Corporation may not issue or incur any obligation, if, after (so doing) the aggregate amount of obligations of the Deposit Insurance Fund (exceeds) the total of the amounts authorized ($30 billion under) section 14(a)."

PPIP violates FDIC rules.

If it's opened to the public, greater fraud will result with ordinary people hit hardest as usual, the best reason to avoid this and alert others to be as prudent.

Do it at inflated prices and stick taxpayers with the risk

It's another dubious scheme to separate the unwary from their money and redirect it to the top — to the same fraudsters responsible for the crisis and their investment company partners going along with the scam.

The Treasury extended the deadline for PPIP participants (to April 24) and loosened some of its guidelines — suggesting that investor support has been less than expected.

However, on April 2, the Financial Times (FT) headlined: "Bailed-out banks eye toxic asset buys."

Giants like JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs "are considering buying (each other's) toxic assets," and why not when it's a win-win way to offload each other's junk, do it at inflated prices, and stick taxpayers with the risk.

New York University's Stern School of Business Professor Lawrence White put it this way:

"I'm worried about the following scenario: You and I have troubled assets, I buy assets from you, you buy them them from me, and at the end of the day it (looks) suspiciously like you bought assets from yourself" with Treasury funds.

PPIP prohibits banks from buying their own assets but lets them do it from other firms, either directly or through investment funds set up for that purpose, and according to Treasury: "It's an open program designed to get markets going."

On April 3, Reuters reported that "US regulators may be open to letting TARP recipients participate in the new program," and already Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley suggested they'll do it.

Others expressed interest in what some observers call a giant money laundering scheme compounding the colossal flimflam that in the end most likely won't work — except to extract multi-trillions from the public to banksters with Washington acting complicitly as transfer agent.

Meanwhile economic fundamentals are deteriorating at depression-level speed and depth while Obama remains in denial.

On April 2 at the G 20, he cited "a very productive summit that will be, I believe, a turning point in our pursuit of global economic recovery" when, in fact, it produced nothing beyond the usual hype — plus this time the quadrupling of the IMF's budget to inflict debt bondage on its willing partakers.

We're clearly in early stage unchartered waters of what Michel Chossudovsky calls "The Great Depression of the 21st Century" heading America for "fiscal collapse" because of policies amounting to "the most drastic curtailment in public spending in American history" — directing most of it for militarism and foreign wars, Wall Street bailouts, and half a trillion for public debt service.

In an April 12 commentary, longtime, well-respected Chicago financial journalist Terry Savage headlined "Social Security Myth" in reporting on some of the fallout.

Someone has to pay for "fixes" and militarism, that someone is us, and target one is Social Security. According to Savage:

"Most likely, Social Security will become a "needs-based" payout to low income, elderly recipients — not a return of the 'investments' you made with all those FICA deductions from your pay check every month over your working career."

In other words, Washington intends to renege on the 74-year old promise FDR announced to the nation on August 14, 1935:

"Today a hope of many years' standing is in large part fulfilled....

This social security measure gives at least some protection to thirty millions of our citizens (now over 56 million, including Supplement Security Income recipients) who will reap direct benefits....

This law represents a cornerstone in a structure....by no means complete.

(It) will take care of human needs and at the same time provide the United States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness.

(The passage of this bill marks) a historic (achievement) for all time."

It's now in jeopardy, so here's what Savage advises.

Prepare.

"Save more money, (and) start from an honest assessment" of what's coming.

What FDR gave will be taken away.

"And that's The Savage Truth."

A disturbing and outrageous one as well as all the other ways we've been betrayed.

[Better to prepare with items such as food and other valuable commodities your home and family will need — worthless money is just that, worthless — Kewe]

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
He lives in Chicago and can be reached at: http://sjlendman.blogspot.com

“...The capital we thought was there is gone. A lot of it was actually translated over the years into Hamptons villas, Gulfstream jets, and other playthings that will now go up on Ebay or some equivalent as we turn into Yard Sale Nation in a general liquidation of remaining assets.... Everything is for sale and nobody has any money.”

The tremors come faster now. Candidate McCain mimics Herbert Hoover asserting that the economic “fundamentals” are sound, even as Wall Street asset Hank Paulson announces the latest lofting of US Treasury life preservers.

The fiscal flotation devices will allow Hank’s cohorts a “soft landing” in more comfortable climes than await the majority here in America the Deflating.

Even the corporate media, reflexively dedicated to promoting “consumer confidence” and keeping the gullible in their seats long enough for the swag-toting executive larcenists to make for the exits, murmur about a new 1929.

As if stock market mattered to ordinary people

With the usual misdirection, the press reports plummeting Wall Street stock prices as if they mattered to ordinary people.

In fact, as economist Dean Baker has repeatedly pointed out

“[T]he stock market is not a good barometer of the economy’s health.

“It can be driven up as a result of a redistribution from wages to profits, or simply as a result of irrational exuberance.

“Neither is good for the economy as a whole, although anything that pushes up stock prices is obviously good news for the small minority of people who own substantial amounts of stock.”

Most people’s “wealth” is represented by their house and maybe their car.

People were encouraged to feel (and act) richer as the housing bubble and its heady irrational exuberance seemed to boost house values by $8 trillion nationwide.

But now the music has stopped, the chickens flutter home to roost, and the piper shrieks for payment.

As massive asset deflation continues, housing prices return to their long-term historic levels, and on average Baker notes, that vanishing $8 trillion in illusory “housing bubble wealth” translates into a $110,000 hit per homeowner.

These hapless folks, “will see much of the equity in their home disappear.”

Using house as an ATM machine

Since so many Americans essentially re-mortgaged themselves in bubble time — using their house as an ATM machine through an equity withdrawal — and continued to consume at a level their stagnant or declining wages no longer allowed, this implacable (and unfinished) deflationary swoon spells real pain.

Yet the media / political focus is on the Wall Street Weak and Dr. Hank’s hundred billion dollar injections.

Pundits and “analysts” worry aloud about the fate of a rumored “free market economy” — a construct that exists only in the misty realm of unicorns, Easter bunnies, tooth fairies, “honest Republicans”, and “good corporate citizens.”

Government securing outlandish private profits of society’s greediest people

Sadly and unsurprisingly the story is an old an familiar one: Government socializing costs and risk while securing the outlandish private profits of society’s greediest people.

The more interesting question is whether we are at a point in our rather lamentable and bloody history when the usual tricks may no longer work.

In a country that no longer manufactures much except weapons of war, or cultural weapons of mass distraction, kept afloat mainly by massive infusions of foreign capital, with a domestic/domesticated population famously dependent on “credit” and buried in personal debt, are we approaching the End of Something?

Great Depression U.S. still had —

As James H. Kunstler has reminded us lately, in that last great greed-induced deflationary spiral, called the Great Depression, the US had not yet squandered its vast oil and gas reserves, its productive industrial base, demeaned and vanquished its proud and self-conscious working class, depopulated its agricultural landscape, emptied and beggared its great cities.

And outside of a few genocidal romps against the American Indian and the “pockmarked Khadiak ladrone” Filipinos, the population had not perhaps yet acquired the taste for blood, booty, and blitzkrieg that now so exemplifies The American Way.

“The Great Depression of the thirties never came to an end,” wrote John Kenneth Galbraith (American Capitalism, 1952).

“It merely disappeared in the great [W.W.II] mobilization of the forties.”

And — by the 1950s —in an effort to prevent another Depression, “the permanent war economy was born.”

The problems cannot be resolved by shifting the debts of the banks onto the taxpayer.

That's an illusion.

By adding another $1 or $2 trillion dollars to the National Debt, Paulson is just ensuring that interest rates will go up, real estate will crash, unemployment will soar, and foreign central banks will abandon the dollar.

In truth, there is no fix for a deleveraging market anymore than there is a fix for gravity.

The belief that massive debts and insolvency can be erased by increasing liquidity just shows a fundamental misunderstanding of economics.

That's why Henry Paulson is the worst possible person to be orchestrating the so called rescue project.

Paulson comes from a business culture which rewards deception, personal acquisitiveness, and extreme risk-taking.

...No one has any idea of the magnitude of the deleveraging ahead or the size of the debts that will have to be written down.

That's because 30 years of deregulation has allowed a parallel financial system to arise in which over $500 trillion dollars in derivatives are traded without any government supervision or accounting.

It makes no sense to provide trillions of dollars of taxpayer money to shore up a system that is essentially dysfunctional.

The taxpayer is being asked to rescue a failed industry that has been used for private gain so that speculators will not have to suffer the losses.

Fannie and Freddie have written hundreds of billions of dollars worth of mortgages that have not yet defaulted, but will certainly default within the next two years.

By creating a backstop for Fannie and Freddie — the two war-horses of the mortgage industry, that currently underwrite nearly 80 per cent of all new mortgages in the US — the Fed is linking US sovereign debt with mortgages and derivatives that are already known to be fraudulent.

The housing boom never had anything to do with Bush's Utopian-sounding "ownership society".

It was always just a swindle to enrich the banking establishment and divert middle class wealth to ruling class elites.

Barron's

...a considerable portion of Fannie's losses come from speculative forays into higher-yielding but riskier mortgage products like subprime, Alt-A (a category between subprime and prime in credit quality) and dicey mortgages requiring monthly payments of interest only or less.

People walk out of a job center in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.

US unemployment jumped to a five-year high of 6.1 percent in August as 84,000 jobs were slashed, according to a report Friday that sparked fresh fears about recession in the world's biggest economy.

In his much-ballyhooed acceptance speech, Barack Obama declared that he would 'finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11'.

If Obama wishes to be true to his promise, he could begin with his own running mate, Senator Joe Biden.

Biden was one of several top Washington officials who met with Lieutenant General Mahmoud Ahmad, the head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) on and around September 11, 2001.

Comment on Suzie-Q:

Both children could easily be Bristol’s

My brother and I are 11 months apart and my 2 oldest children are 11 1/2 months apart

The scrutiny is justified

One would have to be a total idiot with all the information you have along with the photos of Sarah to believe that Trig is Sarah’s

Comment on Suzie-Q:

Fraud. Insurance fraud. This is the real story, folks!

NOT the supposed “current” Bristol Palin pregnancy.

Did Sarah Palin as Governor of Alaska create a fake pregnancy of her own to obtain lifetime medical benefits for the disabled son of her unwed daughter, who otherwise was not covered for those benefits?

Photo: AFP/Getty Images/Spencer Platt

9 percent of American homeowners with mortgageeither behind on payments or in foreclosure

June 2008

A foreclosure sign stands outside an existing home on the market in Denver.

A record 9 percent of American homeowners with a mortgage were either behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of June, as damage from the housing crisis continues to mount, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Friday, Sept. 5, 2008.

US unemployment jumped to a five-year high of 6.1 percent in August as 84,000 jobs were slashed, according to a report Friday that sparked fresh fears about recession in the world's biggest economy.

In his much-ballyhooed acceptance speech, Barack Obama declared that he would 'finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11'.

If Obama wishes to be true to his promise, he could begin with his own running mate, Senator Joe Biden.

Biden was one of several top Washington officials who met with Lieutenant General Mahmoud Ahmad, the head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) on and around September 11, 2001.

Comment on Suzie-Q:

Both children could easily be Bristol’s

My brother and I are 11 months apart and my 2 oldest children are 11 1/2 months apart

The scrutiny is justified

One would have to be a total idiot with all the information you have along with the photos of Sarah to believe that Trig is Sarah’s

Comment on Suzie-Q:

Fraud. Insurance fraud. This is the real story, folks!

NOT the supposed “current” Bristol Palin pregnancy.

Did Sarah Palin as Governor of Alaska create a fake pregnancy of her own to obtain lifetime medical benefits for the disabled son of her unwed daughter, who otherwise was not covered for those benefits?

Photo: AP/David Zalubowski

"So it would be rational for the banks to take Carlyle's assets and exchange them for top-quality, liquid US government bonds, rather than leave loans in place to a business, Carlyle, whose assets remain highly illiquid gone." [Modification by TheWE.cc]

BBC

9 percent of American homeowners with mortgageeither behind on payments or in foreclosure

June 2008

A foreclosed home is seen for sale in Sacramento, Calif.

A record 9 percent of American homeowners with a mortgage were either behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of June, as damage from the housing crisis continues to mount, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Friday, Sept. 5, 2008.

US unemployment jumped to a five-year high of 6.1 percent in August as 84,000 jobs were slashed, according to a report Friday that sparked fresh fears about recession in the world's biggest economy.

In his much-ballyhooed acceptance speech, Barack Obama declared that he would 'finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11'.

If Obama wishes to be true to his promise, he could begin with his own running mate, Senator Joe Biden.

Biden was one of several top Washington officials who met with Lieutenant General Mahmoud Ahmad, the head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) on and around September 11, 2001.

Comment on Suzie-Q:

Both children could easily be Bristol’s

My brother and I are 11 months apart and my 2 oldest children are 11 1/2 months apart

The scrutiny is justified

One would have to be a total idiot with all the information you have along with the photos of Sarah to believe that Trig is Sarah’s

Comment on Suzie-Q:

Fraud. Insurance fraud. This is the real story, folks!

NOT the supposed “current” Bristol Palin pregnancy.

Did Sarah Palin as Governor of Alaska create a fake pregnancy of her own to obtain lifetime medical benefits for the disabled son of her unwed daughter, who otherwise was not covered for those benefits?

Photo: AP/Rich Pedroncelli

Construction workers work on the rooftop of a new home under
construction.

A record 9 percent of American homeowners with a mortgage were either behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of June, as damage from the housing crisis continues to mount, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Friday, Sept. 5, 2008.

US unemployment jumped to a five-year high of 6.1 percent in August as 84,000 jobs were slashed, according to a report Friday that sparked fresh fears about recession in the world's biggest economy.

In his much-ballyhooed acceptance speech, Barack Obama declared that he would 'finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11'.

If Obama wishes to be true to his promise, he could begin with his own running mate, Senator Joe Biden.

Biden was one of several top Washington officials who met with Lieutenant General Mahmoud Ahmad, the head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) on and around September 11, 2001.

Comment on Suzie-Q:

Both children could easily be Bristol’s

My brother and I are 11 months apart and my 2 oldest children are 11 1/2 months apart

The scrutiny is justified

One would have to be a total idiot with all the information you have along with the photos of Sarah to believe that Trig is Sarah’s

Comment on Suzie-Q:

Fraud. Insurance fraud. This is the real story, folks!

NOT the supposed “current” Bristol Palin pregnancy.

Did Sarah Palin as Governor of Alaska create a fake pregnancy of her own to obtain lifetime medical benefits for the disabled son of her unwed daughter, who otherwise was not covered for those benefits?

Photo: AFP/Paul J. Richards

US unemployment jumped to a five-year high of 6.1 percentin August as 84,000 jobs were slashed

A record 9 percent of American homeowners with a mortgage were either behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of June, as damage from the housing crisis continues to mount, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Friday, Sept. 5, 2008.

US unemployment jumped to a five-year high of 6.1 percent in August as 84,000 jobs were slashed, according to a report Friday that sparked fresh fears about recession in the world's biggest economy.

In his much-ballyhooed acceptance speech, Barack Obama declared that he would 'finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11'.

If Obama wishes to be true to his promise, he could begin with his own running mate, Senator Joe Biden.

Biden was one of several top Washington officials who met with Lieutenant General Mahmoud Ahmad, the head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) on and around September 11, 2001.

Comment on Suzie-Q:

Both children could easily be Bristol’s

My brother and I are 11 months apart and my 2 oldest children are 11 1/2 months apart

The scrutiny is justified

One would have to be a total idiot with all the information you have along with the photos of Sarah to believe that Trig is Sarah’s

Comment on Suzie-Q:

Fraud. Insurance fraud. This is the real story, folks!

NOT the supposed “current” Bristol Palin pregnancy.

Did Sarah Palin as Governor of Alaska create a fake pregnancy of her own to obtain lifetime medical benefits for the disabled son of her unwed daughter, who otherwise was not covered for those benefits?

Photo: AFP/Getty Images/Tim Boyle

$516 trillion

To grasp how significant this five-fold bubble increase is, let's put that $516 trillion in the context of some other domestic and international monetary data:

With the economic news of the week of July 14—the continuing crisis among mortgage lenders, the onset of bank failures, the announced downsizing of General Motors, the slide of the Dow-Jones below 11,000 — we are seeing the ongoing collapse of the U.S. economy.

Even the super-rich are becoming nervous as cries for an emergency suspension of short selling ring out.

Crushed by overall debt burden

What is really taking place, however, is that the producing economy of working men and women is being crushed by the overall debt burden on households, businesses, and governments that could reach $70 trillion by 2010.

Financial system bankrupt

The financial system, including mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is bankrupt, as the debts it is based on cannot be repaid.

This is because the producing economy of people who work for a living simply can no longer generate enough purchasing power for people either to pay their debts or allow them to purchase what is being sold in the marketplace.

In turn it is the debt burden and the loss of societal purchasing power that are crashing the stock market.

Destroying producing economy

Thus the collapse of the financial economy has started to destroy the producing economy as well.

It’s a “perfect storm,” the result of a 200-year-old financial system where money is largely created by bank lending and where since 1980 our industry and jobs have been increasingly outsourced abroad to cheap labor markets.

Thus domestic incomes have stagnated while the nation’s GDP has not been able to keep up with the exponential growth of debt.

Jobs taken away, pensions eroded, homes foreclosed

While the mainstream media are blind, deaf, and dumb as to the causes, the victims within the middle and working classes are seeing their livelihoods ruined, jobs taken away, pensions eroded, homes foreclosed on, and are being saddled with ever-increasing debt and forced to work under more and more stress due to rising burdens of taxation, gas and food price inflation, and bureaucratic rules and regulations.

The only places a more-or-less normal life may still be possible will be the wealthiest imperial centers like Washington, New York, Houston, Chicago, or San Francisco.

Creating more debt to shore up failing financial institutions

All that the current bailouts being engineered by the Federal Reserve are doing is to create more debt to shore up failing financial institutions. No new wealth is being created.

The problem politically is that control of the U.S. long ago was turned over to the bankers and the financiers of the Western world.

It was called financial “deregulation,” accelerated under President Ronald Reagan, and has run amok since then.

From a longer historical view, it’s the same phenomenon that first created and then ruined the British Empire , and it’s what created and is now ruining the American Empire today.

Side-effect of control by bankers and financiers is that they are also Zionists

A side-effect of control by the bankers and financiers is that they are also Zionists, so we have the added multi-trillion dollar burden of trying to conquer the Middle East on behalf of the international oil interests and the state of Israel.

The situation has deteriorated sharply since the 1970s as U.S. affairs have been managed on behalf of the financial interests by what you might call the “Three Amigos” — Henry Kissinger, Paul Volcker, and Alan Greenspan.

Kissinger, while Nixon’s secretary of state, made the U.S. dependent on the Middle East for oil, lavished billions on Israel ’s war machine, and created the petrodollar to support our trade and fiscal deficits.

Volcker, while chairman of the Federal Reserve, crashed the U.S. producing economy in the recession of 1979-1983, leading to the rise of the “service economy.”

Greenspan presided over bubble economy created through massive official fraud

Greenspan, during his own Federal Reserve chairmanship, presided over the bubble economy which was created through massive official fraud in home mortgage lending and is now sinking like the Titanic.

The politicians have enabled these financial crimes.

Above all it’s been the Bush family

Above all it’s been the Bush family which has served as a political Trojan Horse for the financiers for three generations, with affairs having become much worse since George H.W. Bush invaded Iraq for the first time in 1991.

The enablers have included a majority of the members of the U.S. Congress.

(See the conclusion of Patrick Buchanan’s new book, Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War for an account of how the U.S. since the Bush I presidency has replicated the catastrophic errors of failed British imperialism.)

The American people are not entirely innocent.

Financier-owned media

We have been so lulled to sleep by the financier-owned media that we have allowed these disasters to take place and are now reaping the consequences.

We have been the fodder for their wars and the signers of their loans.

We have tried to carve out our own piece of the pie which is now crumbling.

In fact, the more war and mass starvation there is the better off they feel.

All they need is a base from which to operate.

London has been their main base of operations since the Bank of England was founded in 1694, though they have a strong presence in other nations.

Elitism in the form of Freemasonry

They have been especially influential in northwest Europe, where elitism in the form of Freemasonry endeavored since the time of the French Revolution to destroy the authority of the Catholic Church.

In fact, World War I was a project of the Freemasons in dismembering Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, both largely Catholic.

This destruction allowed the masters of usury to flourish within the atheistic and materialistic culture that Freemasonry fostered across Europe.

World War I also resulted in the virus of Communism, largely egged on by the internationalists and Freemasons, though it had such a tragic impact on Russia and Central Europe before spreading to China and East Asia.

It is theoretically possible that the US as a nation could still save itself through an internal revolution, while playing a much reduced role in the world.

After all, England , France , and Italy still exist as shadows of their past greatness.

Try to survive

But, realistically, all ordinary people can do today is try to survive, perhaps by working with friends and neighbors in planting food and living within the underground economy.

At least people might not then have to starve to death, because hard as it is to believe that “it could happen here,” widespread famine in the U.S. seems a real possibility over the next several years.

Nations take such risks when they allow capitalist agribusiness to destroy local agriculture.

On a national level, it is likely that as a response to the economic crisis some attempt will be made by desperate politicians to try to replicate the New Deal, but to do this effectively would require political control by a nationalistic reform party.

Even then, additional reform measures such as control of credit as a public utility, a basic income guarantee, and a national dividend would be needed for real economic security to replace the current madness that could soon make the U.S. a relic of history.